Content Preview: rss
7 days ago
I love Christmas food. Perhaps it’s a bit greedy of me, but it’s one of my favourite things about the whole festival. Delicious roast potatoes, pigs in blankets, homemade mince pies and Christmas pudding. Fantastic. What I don’t like about Christmas food, though, is the annual trolley dash. Panic seems to set in the closer to Christmas we get and a pleasant shopping trip turns into WW3. There is strange air of hostility and aggression sometimes in supermarkets that only occasionally rears its head during major bank holidays, but with nothing like the intensity. In our local store they employ queue police to prevent arguments and queue jumping. This year I am trying to buy as much of my festive food from local independent outlets as I can, and thought that this might help me avoid seasonal aisle angst. But will it? My first port of call was my local butcher’s and I came up trumps. I’d spotted that they were taking orders for everything from free-range turkeys, duck, pheasant ...9 days ago
Our local shops are feeling the pinch in the recession and some are warning that they might have to close. So, as I explained in my last post, I’ve decided this year to try to spend as much of my Christmas budget in my home community as I can. I headed into town the other afternoon on a present shopping mission. But an hour or so later, I was beginning to wonder if I’d bitten off more than I could chew. Our high street is a mixture of chain stores, such as Superdrug and New Look, and some independent stores. So I thought I’d explore the independent ones first to see if there were any good bargains or inspiration for presents lurking in there. I was curious because there were a few I’d never actually ventured into before. However, on reflection, this was probably because I’d sensed they were out of my league. In one of the clothes shops everything was beautifully set out and the staff friendly and not too pushy. But on examining the price labels I knew I was out of my depth. ...14 days ago
We’re well into December now and it’s time to crack on with the rest of my Christmas shopping. Normally I try to do as much as possible ahead of the festive season in sales throughout the year. But there have been a lot of distractions this year, plus nobody seems to know what they want and as a result I’ve only managed to get half the items I need ahead of time. Unsurprisingly, our local shops have been finding trading very tough in the recession. Many of them make around 40 per cent of their year’s takings during the Christmas period and have told local newspaper reporters that Christmas 2009 could be make or break time for their businesses. If residents don’t spend their money on our high street this festive season, more shops could be forced to close. We’ve already lost Woolworths and two other local outlets, so it would be very sad to see other businesses go the same way. One of the great things which marks out our town is our beautiful high street with its many independent ...16 days ago
I’ve come to the end of my challenge to live on the equivalent of incapacity benefit or the new version, employment support allowance, and it’s been a really eye-opening three weeks for me. Obviously I can’t pretend that my challenge has given me anything more than the tiniest insight into the lives of people unable to work due to disabilities or illness. As many of you have pointed out, it’s impossible to understand what it’s really like to live with a disability or sickness day in, day out, 365 days a year unless you are genuinely disabled or care for someone who is. Plus the challenge was only for a few weeks, so it doesn’t show what it would be like to live on these benefits for an entire year, with all the ad hoc outgoings or one-off extras that you might have to cover over 12 months. However, while I know that some claimants receive less than the £89.80 I lived on, or more because of other benefits available to them, such as mobility and disability living allowance, I ...21 days ago
Picture a workforce six million strong, paid £50 a week, working long hours, often on call 24 hours a day, with few breaks or holidays. Some workers are as young as 14, while others are in their seventies or eighties. Their very existence, and their willingness to work, saves their government billions of pounds each year, yet they receive no training, little support and often give up the chance of building a life and career for themselves because of their circumstances. Many suffer from ill health due to the pressures they are under, enter a cycle of poverty and some have even been driven to suicide or violence because of their lot. You’d be forgiven for thinking these are sweat shop workers in some developing country, but they’re not. I’m shocked to say that they are the UK’s invisible army of carers – people who every day look after their disabled or ill relatives in their homes and by doing so, save social services £87bn a year. A few of you have left me comments during my ...
